


into the future (to which his back is turned)

by nerdsandthelike



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy | Andromache of Scythia is Too Old, Brief Immortality Angst, But mostly just immortals doing the spider-men pointing meme at each other, Gen, I mean I think Aziraphale/Crowley is happening but you don't have to, Light Religious Discussion, M/M, Pre-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), ambiguously situated in the various Good Omens canons, and does not have time for your supernatural shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 00:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30114141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdsandthelike/pseuds/nerdsandthelike
Summary: “Nicky, my heart,” Joe said as he followed Nicky through the busy streets, “you know that one bookshop from more than a century ago won’t be there, and even if it is, it’ll be some corporate-”And then Joe stopped in his tracks because there it was, just as he remembered, with a slightly more faded sign. A.Z. Fell & Co.“Well damn,” Joe said. “I’m impressed.”Joe and Nicky revisit a bookshop where Nicky once almost fought the shopkeeper. And somehow he’s still there after 150 years. And then Crowley walks in with a bottle of wine. It’s a strange day even for immortals.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 22
Kudos: 221





	into the future (to which his back is turned)

**Author's Note:**

> So my delightful friend [Eiiri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiiri/pseuds/Eiiri) commented the other day that her playlist for Aziraphale/Crowley and Nicky/Joe had a lot of overlap. And then after a flurry of text messages, this fic existed. Thank you also to Eiiri for the beta and all the support. If you enjoy this kind of immortal fluffiness, I highly recommend her work ["Snacks and Midnight Blues."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26484202)
> 
> Also, shoutout to my dissertation research for helping me stumble across the MOST GOOD OMENS QUOTE I'VE EVER SEEN just in time for me to use it for the title and epigraph of this fic.
> 
> I'm always happy to yell about The Old Guard or Good Omens on my [tumblr](https://nerdsandthelike.tumblr.com)!

“A storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.”

-Walter Benjamin, _Theses on the Philosophy of History_

Nicky had always had a head for directions and landmarks. It amazed Joe. Sure, he could read a map with the best of them, but he needed the map. Nicky on the other hand would be walking down a street that, a far as Joe could tell, looked more or less like any street in this part of the world, and say things like “wasn’t there a bookshop just around the corner here?”

And there absolutely shouldn’t be. For one thing, they had traveled to so many places and seen so many streets that Nicky should not have room in his brain for that information. And for another, the last time they had been in Soho was 150 years ago. So there was no way that the bookshop was still there. 

“I remember it had an excellent collection,” Nicky said. “Even if the proprietor was unwilling to part with it. Maybe he has that book I’ve been looking for, you know the one.”

Joe, unfortunately, did know the one. It was a history of the crusades that someone had written in the 1920s, and it was one of the few works of scholarship about those events that Nicky actually found insightful, but his copy had wound up in the Indian Ocean during a particularly trying mission in Madagascar. So he’d been trying to find another ever since. With the only result to date being him and Joe visiting endless used and antique bookstores. 

“It’ll only take a minute,” Nicky said, as if he had ever gotten out of a bookstore in less than an hour without there being gunfire involved. “It was just this way.”

“Nicky, my heart,” Joe said as he followed Nicky through the busy streets, “you know that one bookshop from more than a century ago won’t be there, and even if it is, it’ll be some corporate-”

And then Joe stopped in his tracks because there it was, just as he remembered, with a slightly more faded sign. A.Z. Fell & Co. 

“Well damn,” Joe said. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m very impressive,” Nicky responded. 

“Maybe I meant the bookshop,” Joe teased. 

Nicky wrinkled his nose in a way that made Joe want to kiss him. 

“Now let’s go see if they have that book!” Nicky said before Joe got the chance. 

They entered and it felt a little like going back in time. It wasn’t remotely corporatized. It wasn’t even organized. It didn’t seem to have changed in the last century and a half. In fact, it barely seemed to have been cleaned in that time. If Joe still had to worry about allergies it might have been concerning. But when you were past five hundred, there was something comforting about finding little corners of sameness as everything changed. It was why they were meeting Andy and Booker at the Prospect of Whitby tomorrow to regroup for their next job. 

Joe wondered if the shop had stayed in the family or something like that. It was usually how these things managed to stay around for so long, and he was curious to see if the current employees had internalized any of the developments in customer service since the second World War or if he would have to stop Nicky from punching a shopkeeper again. 

So the last thing he expected to see was the same proprietor who had nearly come to blows with Nicky last time walking out from the back of the shop. And Joe was sure that it wasn’t a grandson or something. If Nicky could do directions, Joe never forgot a face. Or a sense of fashion, which had frankly not been in style in the nineteenth century and was tragically out of date now. 

When the proprietor caught a glance of them he stopped in his tracks. “You’re back,” he said incredulously. 

“You’re still here!” Nicky responded. 

Joe suddenly felt like a referee in a boxing match for centenarians. 

“Wait, when were you last here?” the proprietor said, peering at them. 

“Sometime in the eighteen forties give or take a decade,” Nicky said honestly, since it was clear that whoever the proprietor was, he was not an average human. 

“And after all this time you just think you can barge back in here-” The proprietor stopped himself before he got too worked up. “But wait, how are you still alive? You shouldn’t still be alive.”

“We’re aware,” Joe said dryly. “But in all fairness, neither should you.”

The proprietor looked slightly embarrassed, but like he had to admit that Joe had a point. “Well, since it seems that there are several cats who are very decidedly out of the bag, we might as well get to know each other.”

“I’m Nicolo di Genova,” Nicky said. “Nicky these days. And the love of my life, Yusuf al-Kaysani. Currently Joe.”

Joe always appreciated how easily Nicky said it. When he felt safe enough, he never hesitated. And Joe bet that he had made the same judgement as he had about the safety of telling someone who had been alive at least as long as Booker. And had run a shop in Soho for the last century. 

The proprietor nodded politely. “It’s a pleasure I’m sure. I’m Aziraphale. And as I’m sure you’ve intuited by now, this is my shop. It has been for quite some time.”

“Since when?” Joe asked suspiciously. 

Before Aziraphale managed to say a date that was probably going to start with a sixteen or a seventeen, the door opened and a man in sunglasses and tight black clothes sauntered in. There was really no other word for how he moved. Joe had been around a long time and never seen anyone trying so hard to look as casually cool as this man did. 

“I found a halfway decent bottle,” the man said. “Though a miracle would-”

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “We have guests, Crowley.”

The man, Crowley apparently, pulled down his glasses to reveal eyes that weren’t quite right, but Joe couldn’t quite make himself look at them for long enough to see clearly. Crowley looked at them both appraisingly. Now that Joe could see his face, it looked familiar. Though it had been much longer than 150 years. 

“Do I know you?” Crowley asked. 

“Possibly,” Joe admitted. 

Crowley looked between him and Nicky. “Did I see you two fucking in a bathhouse in Constantinople during the reign of Michael VIII?” 

Joe took a step forward to get a better look at the man. He noticed the tattoo on the side of his face, and as much as hair and fashion could change, that didn’t seem likely too. 

“I think you did,” Joe said. 

“Well good for you,” Crowley said, resettling into his slouch and moving towards the back of the shop. “Nice to see a couple stick it out for so long these days.”

Aziraphale cleared his throat slightly. “Crowley, that was eight hundred years ago.”

“Like I said, impressive,” Crowley replied. “Most people just don’t have the commitment.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said with slightly more distress. “Humans don’t live for eight hundred years.” 

Crowley stopped in his tracks and turned back to them. He lowered his sunglasses again. “Even more impressive,” he said thoughtfully.

“Humans?” Nicky said. 

Joe should have picked up on it, but there was something at least a little bit dangerous about Crowley, and he didn’t like being examined that closely by him. 

“You called us humans,” Nicky continued. “So that means you’re not?”

Leave it to his love to ask the real questions. 

Aziraphale looked vaguely embarrassed. “No, ah, not as such.”

“I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to tell them that, angel,” Crowley said. “Thought the apparitions were going out of style with your lot.” 

Joe tilted his head appraisingly. “He’s an angel?”

Crowley twisted his face in a way that was clear confirmation. 

Joe stole a glance at Nicky, but even he couldn’t quite make out what that expression meant. Not that Joe could quite process his own feelings about that. He knew what the Qur’an said. And what quite a few other books besides had to say on the matter. But he hadn’t really believed in angels and djinn for centuries. And if he ever had, they had certainly been more… ephemeral than the chubby shopkeeper who stood in front of him looking slightly anxious. 

He pulled himself back to the most immediate matter. It helped to focus on something at least slightly more concrete. He turned to Crowley “If you called him angel, then you aren’t one.” Joe gestured to Aziraphale. “Same as ‘humans.’”

“Of course I’m not a bloody angel!” Crowley sounded offended. “I’m not nearly enough of a sheep for that crowd. No offense, angel,” he tossed off to Aziraphale, who waved it away. 

“Crowley is my, er, opposite number as it were,” Aziraphale explained. “From the demonic side.”

Nicky’s face was now showing shock. And curiosity. Which was probably even apparent to the angel and the demon standing in front of him. 

And if Joe hadn’t really believed in angels, the existence of demons was really news. He’d always thought humans did enough evil on their own. They didn’t need any help with that. Though he supposed a demon bearing a bottle of wine did at least confirm some of the Prophet’s teachings. 

This time, Nicky recovered more quickly. “So an angel and a demon are sharing a bottle of wine on a Tuesday evening?” Nicky asked carefully. 

“Also not strictly allowed,” Crowley admitted. “But I wouldn’t really be a demon if I had much to do with rules, would I?”

Despite the way he deflected, Joe had centuries of experience in what real affection looked like. And the demon Crowley was exactly where he wanted to be. As was the angel, actually. And for all that they were apparently supernatural entities, Joe could understand that. 

“And what’s your excuse?” Joe asked Aziraphale with a grin. 

“Knowing my enemy,” Azirphale answered matter-of-factly. “Heavens knows what he’d get up to if I didn’t keep an eye on him.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “See if I ever go to Salt Lake City for you again when I’m in Vegas.”

Nicky finally spoke up again. “I think that perhaps we should talk.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale shot him a look. “Of course. I’m sure you have questions. I know that I do.”

Nicky nodded. 

“I’ll close the shop, and we can go to the back for a cup of tea,” Aziraphale said. “I’ve already sold a book today anyway, and I wouldn’t want that to happen again.” 

Nicky snorted softly. Joe wondered if they were more or less likely to get that book Nicky wanted now. But it had admittedly become much less important in the five minutes since they entered the shop. 

“Fuck tea,” Crowley said, lifting up the bottle he was still carrying. “We need at least wine. Maybe something stronger.” 

“I think I’ll start with the tea,” Joe said, following the angel and the demon into the back of the shop. 

“I-” Nicky began. “I think I will take the wine.” 

Crowley handed him the bottle that was now mysteriously open where it had been closed only seconds ago. “That’s the spirit. We all need it.” 

Aziraphale shot Crowley a slightly disapproving look as he went to put the kettle on. 

Nicky just took the bottle and drank up. 

* * *

“Well they were just charming young men, weren’t they?” Aziraphale asked Crowley after the two immortals left. 

“They weren’t so bad,” Crowley answered in a way that Aziraphale knew was agreement. 

Aziraphale had always liked working with young people. Not too young, of course. Though he’d never admit it, Crowley was much better with children than Aziraphale ever managed. He was fairly sure that this had something to do with a demonic origin for the various sticky substances they always seemed to be covered in, but he’d never bothered to actually ask. 

But once humans got a little bit older and started seriously questioning their place in the universe or at least their society, Aziraphale thrived. It was like being back in the Garden again when they’d just learned to ask. He was always on the lookout for angry teenagers who had ducked into his shop to just stay out of their house for a little bit longer. He could make them tea and offer them advice and on more than one occasion they had spent a few weeks in the bedroom of the flat above his shop. It wasn’t like he used it for anything else. And it was nice to be useful. To guide humans when they needed it most. 

Not that Nicky and Joe had needed any guidance from him. But still, talking so honestly with someone so young had been refreshing. Reminded him of when he was just nine hundred years old, still so suspicious of Crowley and amused by humans trying to domesticate any animal that could carry them. 

“Who do you think is responsible for them?” Crowley asked, interrupting Aziraphale’s thoughts. 

“Pardon?” Aziraphale shook his head to bring himself back into the present. 

“Your lot or my lot? Who made them like this?”

“Surely it has to be my lot,” Aziraphale said. “They’re trying to do good. I don’t see your lot letting them keep it up for so long.”

“There’s lots of possible evil to be done in thousands of years of trying to do good,” Crowley said. “Trust me. And besides, one of them went on a crusade. And I know that was my lot.”

Privately, Aziraphale wished he had the same confidence in that fact as Crowley had. Sure, Crowley had taken credit. But Heaven had fewer objections to the idea of slaughtering all your enemies that Aziraphale liked. 

“But if you’re trying to do evil, why give him a companion? Why not just let him suffer alone for years? Either doing evil or feeling the guilt?”

“Guilt is all your department.” Crowley gestured expansively with his glass. “And maybe the idea was for them to fight for eternity.”

Aziraphale felt another rush of affection for the men who had just left. “Your lot and my lot couldn’t even keep us fighting for all eternity,” he pointed out. “It was never going to work with humans.”

“You never know about humans,” Crowley mused. “It might have.”

“Or they might have been intended to fight forever and fallen in love instead.” 

“Maybe it is your lot, then,” Crowley said. “It does sound properly ineffable.” 

Aziraphale nodded and lifted his glass of wine towards Crowley in a small toast. 

“Though-” Crowley sipped his wine thoughtfully. “This does still raise questions about the others.” 

“That, my dear, is too much to think about tonight,” Azirpahle said, taking another sip of his own wine. 

Crowley just laughed and put his shoes, or possibly just his feet, up on Azirphale’s couch. _  
_

* * *

“So we met an angel,” Joe said as they all sat down in the Prospect of Whitby with their drinks. 

Andy had to laugh. “I’d say that’s a good one, Joe, but I’ve heard it before.”

“We also met a demon,” Nicky added. 

“This sounds like the beginning of a joke,” Andy said, taking a large sip of her double shot of vodka. 

“An angel, a demon, and two immortals walk into a bar,” Booker said. 

“It was a bookshop, actually,” Nicky said. 

“Less fun,” Andy admitted, still not taking this especially seriously. It wasn’t Joe and Nicky’s usual kind of joke, but that didn’t mean she was going to fall for it. 

“If I’m going to meet supernatural entities, I’m going to need a fucking drink,” Booker said. 

“Well there was wine,” Joe said. “The demon brought it.”

“But the angel had plenty too,” Nicky added. 

“And it sounds like you must have as well.” Booker took another large sip of his own drink. 

Andy laughed again. “I’ve been drunk a lot of times,” she said. “But never seen an angel. So maybe they had something stronger.” 

“We may not have been sober by the end of it,” Nicky admitted. “But we definitely started out that way.” 

“Come on, guys,” Andy said, done with the joke. “We have a job to plan.” 

“And that’s more important than the fact that we met supernatural entities who are even older than you?” Nicky protested. 

“If you had met an angel and a demon,” Andy said. “It might be more important. But as it is, you can cut it out.” 

Nicky and Joe shared one of those looks that even she couldn’t fully interpret. 

“Look, I’ve heard it all before. Horns and eyes and wheels and wings and pitchforks. At this point, there’s no way you’re going to surprise me. It was a little bit of a sad effort, but I appreciate the attempt to cheer me up, or whatever. But let’s get back to it.”

Andy should not have been surprised when Joe and Nicky frog-marched her into a bookshop in Soho the next morning before they could leave on their mission. 

“Angel,” called a man who was sitting on a counter really looked like it was not supposed to be sat on. And the man was sitting like he knew it. Andy respected that. “Those nice young men from the other day are back. And they’ve brought-”

“Wait,” the man said, standing up off the counter. “I’ve seen you before too.” 

“One of those faces,” Andy said blandly. 

The man shook his head. “No, I have forgotten a lot of faces. And tried but failed to forget even more. But You don’t forget the face of someone who almost killed Sargon of Akkad during the sack of Uruk.” 

Andy blanched a little bit. If this was a joke, Joe and Nicky were taking it way too far. 

“Angel, they’ve brought another one,” the man called. 

And then a man who Andy hadn’t seen since the Roman Empire bustled out of the back of the shop wearing a waistcoat. 

“You?” He said, clearly as shocked as she was. 

“You’ve met her before too?” Joe asked. 

“I’m guessing she didn’t come in here trying to buy a book,” Nicky muttered. 

“Ah, no,” the man—or whatever kind of being he was—stammered out, looking quite embarrassed. “She saved me from a rather overzealous centurion back in the reign of Nero.”

“She did what!?” The man sitting on the counter sat up straighter and shot a look in the direction of the man whose name Andy had given up on remembering. 

“It’s not as if I was in any real danger, Crowley! I could have used a miracle!”

“I still don’t entirely believe that you’re an angel and a demon,” Andy said. “But there was nothing in my memory of our last meeting that suggested that you were going to get out of that without dying.”

Crowley glared at him. 

“Not dying!” He protested. “Being inconveniently discorporated!”

Crowley gave a “humph” of disapproval. 

“But, ah,” the man said, turning back to her. “I was in a moment of panic, and I do appreciate your, er, very competent assistance.”

“What Aziraphale is trying to say,” Crowley added. “Is thank you for not letting him get what was probably going to be painfully murdered because he’d forgotten how to do miracles or didn’t want to break the rules or some nonsense like that.”

Andy just nodded. 

“And you know her too?” Joe asked Crowley. 

“Yes, just a couple thousand years into creation. In Sumer.” He looked off into the distance. “I should have known that no normal human was that good with an axe.” 

“I don’t remember that,” Andy said. The earlier the memory, the harder it was to hold onto. And that had been before Quynh. 

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Aziraphale said. “We-“ He gestured between himself and Crowley. “We're built to live for millennia. And have memories that don’t quite work on human time. But you-“

“Only so much room,” Andy said. “Yeah, I figured that out,”

There was a silence. Aziraphale and Crowley both watched her. Joe and Nicky just grinned softly at being proven right. She was going to rig the game next time they had to decide who had to take the overnight shift on the stakeout. Just to keep them from being too smug about this. 

“Well,” Aziraphale said, clasping his hands together. “I’m sure you have questions, so I’ll put on the kettle-“

“Not really,” Andy said. 

“What?” Crowley pulled down his glasses and looked at her. 

“I’ve been alive for six thousand years, give or take. I don’t really have a lot of questions.”

“But we were there for the creation of the universe!” Aziraphale said. “And you’re the oldest human in existence! We surely have hours-“

“Look,” Andy cut him off before he could get too excited. “It’s enough for me that the universe exists and that I have to keep living in it. Whatever happened before I got to it isn’t really my business. And honestly, it probably wasn’t that different from what’s been happening since.”

“But-“ Crowley began. 

“Don’t look me up,” she said, heading towards the door. “It’s too easy to leave a footprint these days.”

“Are you-“ Aziraphale began. 

“Though if we all live for much longer, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.”

As she exited the shop, she saw Joe hand Nicky a wad of notes. 

Nicky kissed him softly on the cheek and they followed her out. 

“Well that was a detour,” she said decisively. “So now we have to meet Book all the way across London.” She looked at Nicky. “You’re paying for the cab.”

“Of course, boss,” he said. 

So after six thousand years, she had learned something new. Apparently angels and demons were real. Just not very impressive.


End file.
